quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus .... An auto-update with the latest security patches would have been much nicer, but the server has/had so many holes it was like swiss cheese....

Don't know if it exists for Suse, but yum for fedora gets you updated in one command line:

yum -y update

and that includes all your applications including the server software. Much much much more simple than windoze.

quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus I would never, I repeate, never use linux for the desktop in its current state - I simply have too much cool gadgets that I use in my day to day life that require windows (i.e. pocketpc, smartphone, digi cam, etc). And I like it that way. Linux is for servers, plain and simple.

I have a brand new digi-cam (Canon) and a brand new mp3-player (iRiver) and both worked right out of the box, with no installation of drivers. On my linjux box in Denmark I have two printers and a digitizer attached as well. All works flawlessly, whereas the digitizer *does not* work on Windows 2000 nor XP. It all has to do with doing a google check before buying new hardware.

I once heard someone say that Linux was the choice for those not afraid to mess around with their system and for those with absolutely no experience with computers at all (because it shields them from making damage to anything but their own home dir). Windows was the choice for the pseudo-nerds/"super users" - people who knows how to install programs and are intimate with the menu options in Word. I agree with that.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Don't know if it exists for Suse, but yum for fedora gets you updated in one command line: yum -y update and that includes all your applications including the server software. Much much much more simple than windoze.

yes, and you can make an easy cron job to make it auto too. And if you dont feel comfy with cron, im sure there is some program out there to take care of it too (auto update very similar to windows update in the traybar used to be included in redhat? except that this one checked for all your programs, not only for OS updates like the windows update does.)

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew auto update very similar to windows update in the traybar used to be included in redhat? except that this one checked for all your programs, not only for OS updates like the windows update does.)

Too bad that auto update is only available for the commercial "Enterprise" editions of RedHat these days. Furthermore, you cannot decide which servers it should check out, meaning that some updates you'll not get until RedHat decides so.

Problem is auto-update is useless in my case.

All my applications are built from source - I can't use the defaults on SUSE because they either don't run well - are nitouriously old versions of the software - were not complied for dual 64bit processors - or a list of other reasons.

So basically everything the server is there for - mail, apache, mysql, php, stats tools, etc were all painstakinly built from source.

Suse has an auto-update but it is pretty sad - and I am doubtful it would be that useful in fixing the security holes anyway (especally if the hole is caused by a package that was not in the base install)... anyway I don't use it because as a server it would probably do more harm then good by destablizing my programs...

Gentoo is probably the coolest linux distro - but refused to install on my server (spend about half a day trying to get it to detect the scsi drives and raid them up and still didn't get it to work - suse did it in 5 min).

Anyway basically I have to keep track of all the minor security holes all by myself and upgrade from source everytime a major security flaw is released (which I don't do often because it such a freakin pain). Plus last whole was through some minor application (awStat if anyone is fimilar with it) which I would never have even imagined would leave my server open.... you just can never know.

Oh yea and the server acts up for mysterious reasons every month or so needing a reboot and letting the server fall for 10 min.

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quote:

Originally posted by Yoepus Gentoo is probably the coolest linux distro - but refused to install on my server (spend about half a day trying to get it to detect the scsi drives and raid them up and still didn't get it to work - suse did it in 5 min).

Yeah gentoo is by far the coolest and i agree its a pain to install, but once you have it installed it runs smooth as nothing else! perhaps not the best for critical servers either, more of a test disto, although i heard ppl who run it at big servers (takeing myself as an example i have had a lot less problems with stability on it than i had when i run suse).

but really, dual 64bit processors shouldnt be any major problem with any new linux dist? compileing programs from scratch everytime a security update is avaliable in suse really sounds like a pain in the ass! really try get gentoo to work! ask in the forums there (http://forums.gentoo.org/) , REALLY helpful! probably someone with the same problem from before too...

are you running the server version or personal version?

Still waiting on Yoepus' answer...


Aside from that:

Do any of you think that Windows XP is worth it's price?

Do you also think that retail versions of Linux are worth the price?

If not how much would you be willing to pay for either?


I say retail since you can get free versions of Linux but without any printed docs.

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quote:

Originally posted by ogvh5150 I say retail since you can get free versions of Linux but without any printed docs.

Download Fedora 4 for free, and order "Running Linux" from Amazon if you need a day-to-day printed manual. It doesn't cover the installation of Fedora, but it is extremely intuitive and comes with online docs.

yeah, i wouldnt buy linux either, mostly because it gets outdated so fast... better to donate to projects imo if you want to contribute to the open source community

Linux is free.

Windows is not.

Both get outdated.

One is easy on the wallet.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Download Fedora 4 for free, and order "Running Linux" from Amazon if you need a day-to-day printed manual. It doesn't cover the installation of Fedora, but it is extremely intuitive and comes with online docs.

I just finished the torrent and will be putting this on the laptop for now.

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quote:

Originally posted by ogvh5150 Linux is free. Windows is not. Both get outdated. One is easy on the wallet.

Cant argue with that. What i tried to say is that i really dont see the point in buying linux (unless you are a noob and need support etc, or if you are a corporation and need support etc), when what you but you wont really need. So if you want to help the development of open source applications, its better to simply donate money than to buy a box of something that you wont need.

quote:

Originally posted by ogvh5150 Don't you think you can contribute to what open source is all about with statements like that? You worked with it on an IT level, couldn't you offer some kind of input? To make linux more people friendly?

Ogvh was it this question?


If it is then the answer is no.

Basically I don't do any programming (only do PHP) and since most is shell script and perl (which I can modify and play with but not write) there is little in terms I can do aside from pointing out the obvious bugs I come across.

Critizing the programmers who put their hours and sweat into creating this stuff doesn't really seem like it would encourage them to keep doing it - so I prefer to stay quiet. Its the, if you don't have anything good to say, don't say it attitude. And I think thats a good attitude else I'd probably have put at least a dozen open-source programmers out of their hobby by now



....


as for OS prices:

I think XP is reasonable - the problem is its all one big upfront sum.
When you think about it the OS is the lifeblood of your computer - you spend thousands of dollars on hardware so you can run it. Then you buy hundreds of dollars worth of software (games, apps, office tools, what not) throughotut the life of your computer so you can use it.

When you look at it XP Pro retails for what... $150-200? And XP Home goes for $100-150. Upfront this is a very big fee.

But the lifetime of these type of an MS OS is three years on average. So if you deduce it thats around $50 a year - at that price it doesn't look too bad.

The problem comes when a small user like myself has say 2 or 3 computers ... I really don't want to pay more then a $100 on an OS as a year as "household" - When I lived back home we had 5 computers (2 running linux) - we all basically shared the same MS OS though.

Basically I see it as a household/small office $150 a year an't too bad. If its just one user - $50 a year is a good deal too...

The main problem is I don't pay it "per year" (I wish say I could just subscribe to the OS at $50 a year for the next 10 years and be done with it) but I pay it upfront. And also whenever I get a new system I have to pay the same fee again --- which really is odd to mean and difficult to rationalize - its like being forced to pay for a newspaper subscription twice because your brother/wife/sister wants to read it and not just you (the subscription holder).

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Last edited by Yoepus on Jun-17-2005 at 00:10

@St_Andrew

If you have to buy a Linux distro it would be for the docs. But if you can install Linux you can google your questions. Like what I did when I first tried it with Red Hat 8. It installed fine but I had to find out how to get it to read NTFS drives. RH8 does not have NTFS read support. Mandrake/Mandriva does out of the box but with RH8 I had to get an RPM and then edit a file to mount them. It was scary but I followed instructions to the T. Linux people are so friendly and helpful bunch of geeks.

@Yoepus

Yeah that's the one. The prima donna attitude of some can be where you just go and say "You know what, GFY".

Don't you think that for a perpetually defective product, it warrants the price though? The WPA is what gets a few people steamed when they have a few home pcs or if they're a soho.

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